I was co-author on a paper that was a lot more controversial than anything to do with acceptance or rejection of global warming. We tried to publish in Nature, but the editors kept coming up with phony reasons to reject it The first was "It will only be of interest to specialists." Then we pointed out that this was fundamental science that would be of interest to chemists, physicists, biologists, etc., so they backed off of that objection, and came up with "There is no experimental evidence to support this." We then pointed out that there was experimental evidence supporting it in another paper that my co-author had published. Then they said "Oh, Nature only publishes NEW work, and since there is already a paper with experimental evidence we won't publish it." We then pointed out that this was completely new theoretical work, independent of the other paper. Then finally they said something like "We don't believe this and we will never publish it."

At least they were finally honest in their objection, although intellectually dishonest when it came to science. I lost all respect for Nature as a journal during that experience.

We then submitted to the journal "Physics of Plasmas" and the paper was published there.

EDIT: I'd like to add a few more points. Many people are under the impression that the reviewers are random and anonymous. This is not necessarily the case. Many journals ask you to suggest reviewers, because if the paper is sent out to someone completely outside the field, then they may not have the expertise to review it. For one of the papers I published this year, I did NOT suggest one person as a reviewer, because I knew he had problems with my method. Nevertheless, as soon as I got back the reviews I knew the editor has chosen him--even though all the reviews were anonymous. After a couple of revisions, I had satisfied his objections and he recommended publication. After the first round of reviews he also voluntarily showed his name, so that I would know who he was.

The other thing that I wanted to add was that rejection is a fact of life in scientific publication. For many journals, MOST of the submissions are rejected--some conditionally and some unconditionally. The best thing an author can do is to try to understand the objections, revise the paper and submit it to another journal.

However, I disagree with Climate Realist. I'm quite sure that papers get rejected due to editor bias on regularly. Personally I think journals should err on the side of accepting too many papers, but there are already too many papers being published. One famous example comes from physics. I'm not sure how many people have heard of "bosons" and Bose-Einstein statistics, but Satyendra Bose had a groundbreaking paper rejected, so he sent it to Einstein, who recognized its importance and submitted it on Bose's behalf, after which it got published.

EDIT for Climate Realist: The paper never got sent out for review.

This all sounds very suspicious to me.

When you submit a paper, it goes to two reviewers. The editor of the journal asks those reviewers to assess it and place it into three categories - publish (usually with minor corrections), publish with significant corrections (or after resubmission), or not publish. The decision to not publish is not simply to do with the scientific content. It could be because the reviewers feel much of the work has been previously published. This can be true when a person submits a paper to one journal, adds some additional data, then tries to publish what the reviewers feel is effectively the same paper in a different journal. It could be because the paper content does not match the topics the journal covers.

In most cases, the reviewers will send comments back to the editor and to the author. Rarely are these a single comment. In fact, the editor of the journal probably won't allow it. At that comment stage, authors can respond via the editor to the reviewers comments. This process can take a year for some prestigious journals, with modifications, discussions, responses, and rebuttals taking place. In some cases, a third reviewer may be called or the decision can lie with the editor themselves.

So no. Kano's description does not seem to match what I'd expect.

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Gary, you do not know what you are talking about.

The VERY same thing has happened to me. On one occasion it was EXPLICIT. A referee at Physical Review EXPLICITLY wrote that because what I derived did not agree with current belief it must be wrong. He apparently could not show it was wrong though. I ended up getting into a discussion with the editor who I challenged to find a specific error. He "found" one, which actually turned out to be a case of him doing high school algebra wrong. He admitted that error on his part, and then, "by coincidence", *immediately* found more "errors". None were actual errors on my part.

What you claimed to kano does not occur has occurred to me numerous times, although not as explicitly as the Physical Review situation.

People like you are almost as toxic to science as are the Deniers.

I cannot "view the question" in question, because my exposing his anti-science does not agree with Kano's current "thinking" (with emphasis on the " ") but I can well imagine that Kano is recalling the SCHOOL papers "returned" to him, e.g. with a large letter (higher than "C" in the alphabet) at the top, because the content of said papers did not agree with the instructor's current (sometimes) or permanent (more often) thinking about what constitutes the minimum requirement for a passing grade.

My theory, based on a non-random sample of his past Qs and As, is that Kano's grades on those papers were related to a tendency to make up BS (sometimes) or (more often) regurgitate plausible (sometimes) or non-plausible (more often) BS of others, rather than try to learn the material and write coherently about it. And, that he is applying here what he practiced in school (but, of course, here without the large Ds and Fs, YA catering, in point of fact, to regular past recipients of such letters inscribed upon returned school papers).

In my field (which is not science) publication of papers is less important than in science, but to my limited knowledge, academic papers are sometimes ACCEPTED for publication with just a one or two sentence comment, but -if actually sent out for peer-review, almost never REJECTED on the basis of just a short comment. Peer-reviewers can (and sometimes, though not usually, there is only one) reject a paper (and have journal editors go along with rejection) because they don't like the conclusions of the paper, but they will not remain as peer-reviewers of credible journals if they cannot coat such rejections with a longer than one comment rationale.

Edit: Having now read down the page to find Kano's very SHORT comment here, it seems that his (non-viewable) question does in fact (and contrary to my theory above) refer to an actual, not a made-up, rejection of a submission, but since Kano evidently cannot remember much more about it other than the rejectee being (for plausibly very understandable reasons) "bitter," the whole discussion here seems rather pointless (like most of this whole category of YA).

Edit2: Although not a typical anti-science denier by any means, Paul's Alias 2 exhibits here a tendency common with many such deniers: they look in the mirror and project what they see onto others. As in: "Gary, you do not know what you are talking about." On the contrary, it is PA2 himself, who apparently often assumes that his own obsessions (with differential equations or whatever) explain all sorts of other unrelated phenomena. His story here about a way-off-base reviewer that rejected his paper for Physical Review (IF true, which -given PA2's evident difficulties with reality- I would not assume except for case of argument here) is nothing at all like what Kano was talking/rambling/garbling about (I have since bothered to log out and in again, in order to in between actually read the otherwise unreadable and in any event not worth reading original "question" of Kano), and certainly nothing remotely like "the very same thing."

I appreciate Pegminer's answer. It shows he is willing to provide honest answers even when they aren't necessarily favorable to ..... well I will just leave it at that. I am sincere.

As someone who has studied paleoanthropology a great deal, I can remember lots of cases of extreme bias and papers don't get published if they don't tow the line. IMO Too often, too many scientists are too rigid in their thinking and don't like new ideas threatening their old ideas. There is a certain benefit to that in that it makes it hard to publish something unless it is really solid but it also assume that the original theories were based on more solid evidence and that isn't always the case.

I am sure that a reputable scientific publcation would never reject a paper saying "doesn't agree with current thinking". At least not since Galileo's time.

Although a journal run by young Earth creationists, anti-nuclear activists or global warming deniers might reject a paper for that reason. But science encourages original thinking. And that includes climatology. If anyone found actual evidence against AGW, it would be published. Even if it were true that scientists did not like such evidence, they would not be able to hide or ignore it.

edit for Peginer

Your problem was probably with the reviewers that Nature selected.

What type of peer review? Sounds like a general reference (analogy) to the scoring procedure.

I've only been acquainted with one where the premise was spot on but no clinical studies existed. But it was still referenced, and cited in a medical journal by another peered submission, wasn't my study but I help my wife compile and edit.

PHDs have a submission requirement...don't you know. "The mind should burn bright least the thought grow dim"

Yes, I have had papers rejected, although not for that reason. When that happens, you try to look at your paper from an unbiased point of view. If it is worth publishing, you submit it elsewhere. If not, you file the ms as a failed attempt. You might want to dig it out later, if "current thinking" changes.

I’ve never come across anyone who has had a paper rejected/returned on the basis that it doesn’t agree with current thinking. In fact, papers that introduce new perspectives, push the boundaries and challenge existing ideas are often favourably received for the very reason that they provoke debate and further our understanding of a subject.

Kana has mentioned that this was how a colleague phrased the rejection of his paper and I suspect that the colleague may have been somewhat angered or bitter about the rejection and that his turn of phrase may have been more emotional than rational or factual. I suspect also that Kano was only privy to that specific stage of the process as there must have been more to it than such a blunt and outright rejection.

I’ve had papers rejected and accepted for various reasons, sometimes conditionally and sometimes unconditionally. A recent proposal I submitted (nothing to do with climate change, it concerned agriculture) was initially rejected until clearer explanations and methodology were provided. This was perfectly justified, in hindsight I’d have rejected it myself. At a chance meeting some time later I did find out one of the referees and that proved very useful as she was able to advise further. On resubmission to the same journal some time later, it was conditionally accepted subject to some minor changes and improvements.

There have been a couple of occasions when submissions have been conditionally rejected. I left it for a while, resubmitted the manuscripts without any changes whereupon they were accepted. Perhaps changes in current thinking contributed to this.

I have come across some quite unusual rejections and one that comes to mind is a paper that my partner submitted about 15 years ago, it concerned marine biology. It was rejected outright for some rather obscure reasons that didn’t pertain to the content of the paper at all. When she submitted it to a different journal (completely unchanged) it was unconditionally accepted and provoked a hugely positive response. Had it not been for specific references to parts of the content of the paper, then one could easily have thought that the referee’s comments related to an entirely different paper. It appears there were three referees and we suspect there may have been some collusion going on.

Well it was what he said, returned rejected I don't remember the wording, and I don't recall if there were additional comments, he was a power station engineer a colleague, and he wasn't addressing me, but he was very bitter about it.

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Kano recently stated:

>>Someone I know submitted a paper, which was returned saying "doesn't agree with current thinking"<<

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Ak4l7ldMrdLOYF1FNx6ZcZLsy6IX;_ylv=3?qid=20130807205945AAeZFuR

There is nothing about this sentence that makes sense to me.

1. Outside of a classroom environment, I have never had a paper “returned.” Rejected, yes; returned, no.

2. I have never – or ever heard of anyone who – received a review(s) of a paper consisting of only a single comment (even favorable reviews are frequently multiple pages long and contain numerous comments).

3. In fact, I have never – or ever heard of anyone who had – a paper rejected because of some vague, general “something does not agree with something” reason.



I can believe that the phrase might be used – but, only in the context of something very specific in the paper among multiple (i.e., dozens) comments by multiple reviewers. And, if a paper was summarily rejected based on some vague criticism/comment, the rejection letter could be posted for everyone in the world to see.

4. I don’t think that I have ever written a paper that was only reviewed by one person (I may have, but it would had to have been something of such minor importance that I did not care whether it got published and immediately forgot about it).

5. I have never heard of a case where a paper was rejected (or, for that matter, published) without the author(s) having an opportunity to address, defend, explain, justify, and/or change/correct/ignore any/all comments made by any/all reviewer(s)/editor(s) (and, again, if that did happen the “paper trial” could be posted for everyone to see).

I’m inclined to just call “Bullshlt” on Kano’s comment, but I thought that I would ask if anyone has ever had an experience that supports his claim.

Perhaps they were just being kind, and your paper was so far off the wall it wasn't worth elaborating further.